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Stepan Andriyovych Bandera (January 1 1909–October 15 1959) was a Ukrainian nationalist leader who headed the Ukrainian Nationalist Organisation (OUN).

He was born in the village of Uhryniv Staryi, in the district of Kalusz in Galiсia (Stanyslaviv oblast), which at that time was ruled by the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. His father, Andrey Bandera, was a Greek-Catholic priest in Uhryniv Staryi. His mother, Myroslava Bandera, was from an old clerical family, being the daughter of a Greek-Catholic priest in Uhryniv Staryi.

Stepan spent his childhood in Uhryniv Staryi, in the house of his parents and grandparents, growing up in an atmosphere of Ukrainian patriotism, living national culture, and political and public interest.

In spring 1922, his mother died from tuberculosis of the throat.

From 1931 Bandera was deputy of regional guides, then – head of regional executive of OUN and commandant of ULO. He was condemned to death for the organization of the murder of the Home Secretary of Poland in 1934 but the sentence was vacated and commuted to life imprisonment. He was released in September 1939. In 1940 Bandera headed the revolutionary group of OUN. On June 30 1941, he was elected a member of the Government of the renewed Ukrainian State proclaimed in Lviv. He was imprisoned in German concentration camps. After the war, he headed the movement of western units of OUN and UPA. UPA partisan units continued fighting the Soviet Union and communist Poland until the early 1950's, especially in Carpathian Mountains regions.

On October 15 1959 in the entrance of a house in Kreittmayr street, 7 (Kreittmayrstraße), in Munich, Stepan Bandera was found at 13:05 inundated with blood, still living. A medical examination established that the cause of his death was poison. Two years later, on November 17 1961, the German judicial bodies proclaimed that the murderer of Stepan Bandera was Bohdan Stashynskyi who acted on the orders of Soviet KGB head Alexander Shelepin and Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev. After a detailed investigation against Stashynskyi, a trial took place from October 8th to October 15 1962. The sentence was handed down on October 19th, in which Stashynskyi was condemned to 8 years of heavy imprisonment. The German Supreme Court confirmed at Karlsruhe that in the Bandera murder, the Soviet Government in Moscow was the main guilty party.

On October 20 1959 Stepan Bandera was buried in the Waldfriedhof cemetery in Munich.

• 1909 births
• 1959 deaths
• Ukrainian people